MAKING things with 3D printers is an idea that is being adopted by manufacturers to produce goods ranging from false teeth to jet engines. Conventional printing, though, has not remained idle. Machines that have their origins in the high-speed rotary presses that apply words and images to large reels of paper, like the ones which […]

WHEN great designs are turned into products compromises are made. The beautifully sculpted “concept” cars that regularly appear at motor shows never get built, at least not in the form they left the design studio, because they are inevitably too difficult and expensive to engineer for mass production. For decades this has meant products have […]

AS BLACK SABBATH was giving German rockers a blast from the past in Frankfurt last week, another band was setting up in one of the giant halls of the city’s exhibition centre. This band, however, had never touched their instruments before. This is because they had been made only days earlier with the help of […]

Britain, like many other countries, has gone through a period of huge deindustrialisation. Nearly 9m people were employed in British manufacturing in 1966; by 2011 fewer than 3m were. Manufacturing’s share of the economy is around 10% today, half what it was in 1990. In different countries, from rustbelt America to rustic China, a chorus […]

These UP! 3D printers sell for under $1,000. They are made by Tiertime in Beijing. Here are a line of the printers being used to make ABS-plastic parts for the assembly of more printers. This makes design changes easy, says the company. It also helps the consumer as the software that comes with each machine […]

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Paul Markillie is Innovation Editor of The Economist. He specialises in writing about emerging and disruptive technologies. His special report “The Third Industrial Revolution” was published by The Economist in 2012 as a cover story and attracted international interest. Other more recent reports include "Knit me a car", a special report on new materials in manufacturing. His previous special reports have included carmaking, aerospace and logistics. Paul was The Economist’s first Asian Business Correspondent, based in Hong Kong, and also served as Asia Editor.